There are few things more frustrating than being disturbed by unwanted sound, more commonly referred to as noise. For instance, employees gathered in a room/area to conduct a meeting generally do not want to hear conversations, music, etc., from an adjacent room/area-which is true regardless of whether the two rooms/areas are separated by a wall or a partition of panels. With respect to the latter, it is therefore desirable that the partition, and/or each panel of the partition, mitigate sound from the adjacent area/room as much as possible before it enters the partitioned room/area (as noise).
As is commonly known, air and vibration are two of the main ways that sound is typically transmitted from one side of a partition (i.e., from a first area/room) to the other (i.e., to a second area/room). In terms of air, there are three locations that are particularly important to seal as best as possible: the interfaces respectively between each of the partition's panels, the interface between each panel (and/or the partition as a whole) and the ceiling (and/or an interface associated with the ceiling, such as those that interface with wheels connected to one or more panels), and the interface between each panel (and/or the partition as a whole) and the floor. In fact, prior art partitions typically include some methods/components for limiting air flow in one or more of these areas; however, they are not very effective.
For example, because a panel-floor gap is necessary to prevent ceiling-hung panels from dragging on the floor when they are being repositioned, some prior art panels include a drop seal to mitigate the flow of air between the panel and floor (i.e., the panel-floor interface) once the panel has been repositioned. The problem is that as the prior art drop seal 420 (e.g., depicted in FIG. 12 interfacing with a prior art panel 410) is extended to the floor, a passageway/channel 414 is simultaneously opened—which enables air, and thus sound, to pass relatively freely between the panel body 405 and the drop seal 420. In essence, prior art drop seals tend to create a new problem (i.e., creating or enlarging a gap/channel between the drop seal and the panel body) by attempting to solve the original one (i.e., minimizing the gap between the panel and the floor). It is also important to bear in mind that whatever amount of air/sound that is flowing between the drop seal and the panel body, i.e., with respect to a drop seal that is adjacent to the floor, that amount is effectively doubled by the addition of a drop seal adjacent to the ceiling, which is quite common.
On the other hand, one of the reasons that vibration can be so problematic is that panel frames are typically constructed out of materials that transmit it well, such as sheet steel or aluminum. Accordingly, when sound from one area/room encounters one side/face of the panel/partition, it produces a vibration, which is transmitted through the (e.g., sheet steel or aluminum) frame of the panel/partition to the other side/face of the panel/partition to another area/room.
Finally, an additional way in which sound/noise is often transmitted from one side of a panel to the other is through the panel's non-interface/body region. Despite the fact that exteriors and interiors (i.e., non-frame portions) of acoustic panels are often comprised of various sound insulating materials—such as drywall, laminates, wood agglomerates, polyurethane, polystyrene, glass, mineral fibers, acoustic blankets, or a mixture of two or more of these, among other materials known to those skilled in the art-many prior art panels still typically do not sufficiently/significantly mitigate sound of certain frequencies, such as low octave bands in the audible spectrum (e.g., 125 Hz, 63 Hz and 31.5 Hz), from substantially passing from one side of the panel and/or partition to the other.